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IMO, Fi is more naturally empathic than Fe because of funneling everything down to the core concept of what is good/bad/whatever for humans. This allows us to grasp how someone could feel very differently than we would in a given situation or how they may need something quite different, because we actually do see the very abstract connection to the "same" core concept. There is certainly some Ne in this.

Like Ti would: that makes sense. Although I think Ti is an inhibiting function in Ti doms unless being used to argue with someone's words, Fi in this sense seems like a nice experience to have. Of course I wouldn't want to empathize - although I do like to help - with someone; thus the word chosen: experience.

I didn't get the part:

of what is good/bad/whatever for humans

Edit: However this process probably takes a long time? If too long and the moment is lost it would be unproductive I would say.

Originally Posted by OrangeAppled

I find FJs struggle much more with grasping "foreign feelings" in others, or emotions or values they are unfamiliar with that don't follow a cultural script. They at best may sympathize with a bad/good feeling in someone, being able to recognize how it feels even if not understanding how it arose; but at worst they can become harshly judgmental when they don't think it's the "right" response. They use feelings & emotions in a much more utilitarian manner. So they sometimes just skip empathy & move on to an action to smooth out the feelings/emotions.

Yes but I've also seen them accepting others for their feelings. This I've noticed mainly in ENFJs. It could be what you said though:

So they sometimes just skip empathy & move on to an action to smooth out the feelings/emotions

Originally Posted by OrangeAppled

Because Fi types are more focused on understanding, and may be content to stop there, we may strangely appear less caring. We empathize deeply, but its results may never surface directly, but perhaps at a later time in the upholding or pursuit of an ideal it helped build. So our feeling activity is in the mind, but IMO, it's much more closely related to standard definitions of empathy than the visible action an FJ may take.

From what I have noticed INTJs seem to be the most driven to care out of all Fi types. It could be their Je. See an issue or empathize – though I’m not entirely sure they empathize – so find a solution.

I get along okay with FJs in person. I click the best with ISFJs & ENFJs.

Usually an FJ dislikes me first & projects BS onto me. It's worse when you are both women because of cultural expectations that you (the INFP) should be Fe-like also. The two-faced criticism, manipulative emotional displays, and unspoken expectations that lead to guilt-tripping later will make me avoid these individuals. Almost all female drama I've experienced was connected to an FJ woman. Once the FJ in question was cut out, life resumed peacefully. FP women are just really easygoing & forgiving in comparison.

I notice male INFPs may get more of a free pass from female FJs & male FJs may be more intrigued than put-off by female INFPs.

Originally Posted by LadyLazarus

*raises hand*

Why is there a 1 at the end?

OP's typing as INFP is questionable. Or perhaps it's, "Look how Ne we are! We don't follow grammar rules like those SJs!".

Often a star was waiting for you to notice it. A wave rolled toward you out of the distant past, or as you walked under an open window, a violin yielded itself to your hearing. All this was mission. But could you accomplish it? (Rilke)

I've had problems with various MBTI types or combinations in my life but that's usually down to: a) immature/unhealthy type examples, b) a few bad apples, d) me learning to understand and deal with different communication styles.

I do get along with ENFJs well. I think there's something to be said for F-dom commonality (or even J-doms in general) - it means we can at least agree to prioritise 'rational' (ie. in the Jungian sense), subjective thinking. Not that I have a problem with the other types; it's just that it can make it easier for us to be on the same page.

My mom is an ESFJ and she's my best friend in the entire world. Usually if I disagree with an FJ, it's because they're holding me to their expectations or system when I don't feel like complying with it. But it's not that we don't get along. Sometimes I just don't feel like fitting into their order for things, and even when I do it takes effort. We get along fine though.

Originally Posted by Riva

INFPs are you empathetic?

I think Fi doms are more value based than empathetic. Fe feels the outside and feels it in the inside. Fi has personal values.

Is that how it works in you folks?

Shouldn't that be backwards? If you're an Extroverted Feeler, wouldn't your inside feelings be shown externally? Versus an Introverted Feeler feeling things internally rather than externally?

Either way, yes, I'm very empathic. It was a problem for a long time, but finally I managed to harness it. Now I've kind of reached a point where I'm confident enough and able enough to manage the empathy that I can even be a bit cold or sarcastic. Conflict doesn't consume me for days like it used to.

Originally Posted by SolitaryWalker

Wow, that sounds very specific. Developing value systems is a very complicated activity that requires a great deal of determination and conscious practice. To do that, a person would need to carefully analyze what moral principles are worth fighting for, which principles of society are misguided and how the misguided notions can be corrected. One would have to be considerably skilled at ethical discourse and even moral philosophy to pull that off. It seems to me that it is a mistake to ascribe such lofty characteristics to the profile of an INFP or any type for that matter. After all, even six year old children are sometimes labeled as INFPs and they certainly don't have the philosophical acumen to think in a manner that leads to a wealth of discoveries centering on illumination of original moral insights and trenchant criticisms of society's moral failures.

First of all, as I'll get into later, you can't type children. The different elements of the type are developed at different ages. So no six year old will be an INFP.

Second of all, you're right, a person would have to spend a lot of time and energy thinking about those things. Which is why an INFP's personality is centered around it. That's something we spend many hours of many days of many weeks of many months of many years thinking about and reading about and working out for ourselves. If you ask an INFP about their personal values, they can go on and on about their favorite philosophers and activists and causes to demonstrate the things they hold most dear. For me it's individuality, freedom, liberty, art being superior to science (and the dangers of a pro-science society), and the lack of respect we have for our own humanity.

To a non-INFP, that would be complicated for a six year old. But that six year old spends a lot of time between six years old and sixty years old thinking about those things. It's not complicated to us because it's what we value the most in our lives. We invest that time and thought and energy and emotion into it.

This is why typology just seems to make little sense to me, the INFP is portrayed as a "moral philosopher", the INTP as the "mathematician/physicist", the INTJ as the Scientist, the ENFJ as "messiah". What the heck is going on here, we're assigning all of these four-letter codes to children and all sorts of unremarkable adults, yet we're ascribing all sorts of panegyric qualities to the basic features of their personality. Can someone here help me understand how I can resolve this apparent absurdity?

We don't apply MBTI types to children. Each of the functions is developed at a different stage in our lives, and we don't fully settle into ourselves until our late teens.

The descriptions are arbitrary. They're meant to be descriptive of the average person who has that personality type rather than being job descriptions. Just because we're the "moral philosophers" doesn't mean that our moral philosophizing is what separates us from an ENFP. It just means that's something we tend to that the person who was describing the personality types thought would best set us apart from the rest of the MBTI.

Every person who describes personality types gives them different names and titles. You're reading too much into one version of them.

I see, it would seem that an introvert has a tendency to detach from the mainstream social view, but I am not sure if it is fair to say that every introvert can achieve that. My hunch is that INFPs have a tendency to strive for a perspective that's independent from society's mainstream view, though it seems puzzling to assert that all INFPs by definition have achieved that goal. I don't think that any person who has "Thinking" as part of their type is an exceptionally good logician or any person who has "Feeling" in their type is empathetic. Such skills can be developed only with deliberate practice.

Sure, not every xxTx will be a logician. But the ones whose first function is Ti? Yeah, they will be. That's literally the first filter of their thought process.

You need to remember that a large part of why you're having trouble understanding how the INFP analysis can be accurate is that you're using your non-INFP perspective to see it.

I'd guess the whole internal dynamic of the type changes when it becomes first and foremost extroverted and intuitive as opposed introverted and feeling-oriented. I don't find the idea that by reversing the order of functions in a type, we end up with simply an extroverted version of the type. Should we say that an ESTJ is an extroverted, thinking, sensing and judging version of the INFP?

No. We should say that an ESTJ is an extroverted, thinking, sensing, and judging version of a person. Just like an INFP is an introverted, intuitive, feeling, perceiving version of a person.

I guess you can say that introverts in general tend to detach from the mainstream ethos and that may lead to eccentricity, but I remain troubled by the idea that a certain type is eccentric by definition.

Maybe not the connotations of eccentric, but if you mean the definition of eccentric -- (of a person or their behavior) unconventional and slightly strange -- then it's not that hard, given that we prioritize very refined personal values that we identify more than we identify with any culture or social standard.

Doesn't everyone need time alone, even the most extroverted of us? I don't see how this tells us any more about the ENFP than it does about other extroverted types.

By definition:

An introvert expends energy for social interaction, whereas an extrovert gains energy through social interaction.

I guess that could be true if INFPs follow through on their natural tendencies to become unconventional in their values, but a lot of INFPs who fail to actualize their potential will remain social conformists and typically similar to an average person in society. Besides, I'd imagine that even the most self-actualized of INFPs may reach unique values and have moral disagreements with other people who share their type, yet it's unclear how different they can be. In general, it's difficult for any person to construct his own moral framework in a manner that is both coherent, plausible and at the same time dramatically different from the mainstream view. We can debate about issues such as racial equality, discrimination, sexism, fair labor practices and so on, but we generally share similar fundamental assumptions about the overarching moral principles such as human dignity, fairness, the value of human life and so on. At best, we're just modifying our opponents' conclusions and explaining how the moral premises that we all agree on lead to a different conclusion from their own. For example, most American racists of the anti-bellum south accepted Lincoln's proposition that all men were created equal, they just didn't regard blacks as human. Hence, the anti-slavery activists had to correct them by pointing out that blacks were humans and the moral beliefs of the racists behooved them to reconsider their commitment to slavery. Martin Luther King made a similar argument by appealing to the deep-seated values of human dignity and fairness that even the most ardent of his opponents subscribed to. I guess my point is that the autonomy of moral reasoning can only lead one to deviate from the mainstream view so far, I doubt it'd be enough to make self-actualized INFPs dramatically differ from those who are less morally autonomous or those who are just as autonomous but reject some of their convictions.

For someone who's come into the INFP thread to ask questions about INFPs, you sure are quick to tell us all about ourselves and explain to us how we can and can't operate.

Whether or not somebody spends a great deal of time pondering the complexities of life depends on a combination of various factors. Temperament is merely one of many of such factors and the "INFP" merely represents a limited range of cognitive tendencies that a contemplative temperament possesses.

At best, you could argue that people who belong to this type tend to be more likely to engage in this activity, but it would be wildly inaccurate to say that if someone is an INFP or belongs to any other type, they'll necessarily value the qualities you're describing.

"Do not argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience." -- Mark Twain

Whether or not somebody spends a great deal of time pondering the complexities of life depends on a combination of various factors. Temperament is merely one of many of such factors and the "INFP" merely represents a limited range of cognitive tendencies that a contemplative temperament possesses.

At best, you could argue that people who belong to this type tend to be more likely to engage in this activity, but it would be wildly inaccurate to say that if someone is an INFP or belongs to any other type, they'll necessarily value the qualities you're describing.

Again, don't come in here where we're answering questions about ourselves and proceed to lecture us about ourselves. I'm not going to argue something more than one of us has already told you, particularly when you're being presumptuous and hardheaded about it.

Again, don't come in here where we're answering questions about ourselves and proceed to lecture us about ourselves. I'm not going to argue something more than one of us has already told you, particularly when you're being presumptuous and hardheaded about it.

Unfortunately, you're already starting out with the wrong assumption. You're presuming that you and other people in this thread have a great deal in common because you identify as INFP. Odds are, a third of the people on this forum are mistyped because the web is fraught with notoriously unreliable MBTI tests and type profiles are very superficial. Search for my threads on "Folk typology", you'll see what evidence I have in support of my proposition.

On top of that, you're assuming that being a certain type makes you better at understanding it than someone who does not share it. The reality is that type consists of subtle cognitive dispositions that are rather difficult to understand through introspection alone. If it wasn't, you'd know all there is to know about your type and there would be no need to even bother looking for other resources.

If you want to learn real typology, look for my type profiles that the owner of this site recently posted. He'll be starting out a resource section where these profiles will be among the first entries, you'd be well advised to read them. While not all of the claims there are true and my work is not infallible, it will take your understanding of typology to a new level. At the very least, you'll recognize the distinction between personality and temperament, applied typology and pure typology, cognitive tendency and observable behavior and a host of other concepts that can give typological discussions a semblance of a coherent theoretical framework.

"Do not argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level and beat you with experience." -- Mark Twain